Why Adults Do Better At Learning A New Language

Good news! It turns out that you can teach an old dog new tricks – especially when it comes to learning a second (or third, or fourth) language.

You’ve probably always heard that adults have a much harder time learning a second language than children do.

But according to recent studies from language learning experts at the University of California, Santa Cruz, the exact opposite is true:

Adults learn a second language just as quickly and remember the information just as well as kids.

How can this be?

According to his recent published paper on “Myths and Misconceptions about Second Language Learning: What Every Teacher Needs to Unlearn,” Professor Emeritus of Psychology Barry McLaughlin writes, “…experimental research in which children have been compared to adults in second language learning has consistently

demonstrated the inferiority of young children under controlled conditions.”

McLaughlin cites extensive research that refutes the notion that children learn a second language more readily because their brains are more flexible and “plastic.”

In addition, adults benefit from what’s called “first language acquisition” – the fact that we have mastered a first language, and so our brains are already wired to accept additional languages.

Not to mention that adults often are more invested in the process – no one is making us learn a language but ourselves.

What hasn’t been addressed well until now, though, is that there is a better way to learn another language – one that doesn’t involve boring memorization or the endless conjugation of verbs.

Instead, we should tap into what we already know about language as adults (we have complete mastery of our first language), and use that knowledge to easily unlock and learn to speak additional languages.

I want to spread this kind of learning, because I truly believe that schools and other programs are going about it all wrong.

So why speak just one language when you can be bilingual by spring and tri-lingual by summer – just in time for that next vacation? It sounds crazy, but that’s just because you’ve never seen anything like this before.

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